SUNY Oneonta men's tennis team will seek to repeat as conference champion this the 2010 North Atlantic Conference team and individual tournaments beginning rough Sunday. The Red Dragons are the defending champion and seeded No. 1 as they ce championship from a year ago.
The two-day event will take place at the Birchwood Tennis Club in Clarks Summit, Pa. The men's four-team tournament will take place tomorrow beginning at 9:00 a.m. while the individual tournament will take place on Sunday beginning at 8:00 a.m.
Oneonta will play the fourth seed, Keuka College, in the semifinals and, if they are victorious, they will face the winner of the Penn State Berks/Penn State Abington match in the championship.
Last spring Oneonta won the North Eastern Athletic Conference championship in its first season as an associate member. This spring, the six NEAC competing schools became associate members of the NAC to form a West Division. The winner of this weekend's tournament will face the East Division champion next Saturday, May 1st at the Tri-City Tennis and Fitness Center in Latham, N.Y.
The Red Dragons will enter this weekend 13-4 overall for the year and completed its second straight undefeated season in the conference going 5-0. They won four of its matches by shutout while allowing one team, Penn State Berks, to register two points, which were the only points Oneonta has allowed in both seasons.
If Oneonta wins this weekend and takes the overall championship next weekend, its NCAA opportunity will have to go through the Pool B berth process due to the fact that the NAC champion doesn't receive an automatic bid to the national tournament until 2012.
The Oneonta men swept through both the team and individual tournaments last year bringing home the team plaque and all nine, six singles and three doubles, champions in the process. Head coach Bill May was selected as the Coach of the Year and then freshman, #Adam Shapiro (East Rockaway/Lynbrook)#, earned Player of the Year honors after winning the title at No. 1 singles. This year Shapiro is the top seed at No. 2 singles along with being the No. 1 seed at third doubles with his partner, junior #John Taft (Queensbury/Glens Falls)#. Shapiro is 11-6 overall in singles this year and 6-2 overall with Taft.
Oneonta is seeded No. 1 at all singles spots except No. 1 where senior #Matt Steinhauser (Plainview/JFK)#, who is the second seed in that flight. Steinhauser is 12-3 overall this year and his only conference defeat is to this year's top seed, Andrei Bacalu of Penn State Berks. The two battled back in March where Bacalu won in a third-set super tiebreaker after the two split the first two sets 7-6, 6-7.
The other top seeds for Oneonta in their respective flights are junior #William Sacco (Canandaigua/Naples)# at third singles; sophomore #Josh Slifkin# at fourth singles; Taft at fifth singles; sophomore #Dan Evans (Dix Hills/Half Hollow Hills)# at sixth singles.
Sacco and partner, junior #Jon Dorin# will be the top seed at first doubles. Sacco and Dorin are 9-5 overall this year as partners.
The remaining top seeded doubles tandem for Oneonta is Steinhauser and Slifkin at second doubles. Since being paired this spring, the two have put together a 5-1 record overall.
